NFL notebook: Caldwell out in Indy housecleaning

Wednesday

Jan 18, 2012 at 12:01 AMJan 18, 2012 at 9:48 AM

The Indianapolis Colts' crash cost coach Jim Caldwell his job.

The Indianapolis Colts’ crash cost coach Jim Caldwell his job.

The team fired Caldwell yesterday, the second major decision in what is expected to be a big offseason shake-up. Team owner Jim Irsay fired team vice chairman Bill Polian and his son, Chris, the team’s general manager, the day after the regular season ended.

It took a little longer for the decision on Caldwell, who had just finished his third season as coach of the Colts, who stumbled to a 2-14 season without injured quarterback Peyton Manning.

Caldwell’s record was 26-22 overall.

He won his first 14 games, an NFL record for a rookie coach, and became the fifth first-year coach to take his team to the Super Bowl.

But the disastrous 2011 season was too much for Caldwell to overcome after winning AFC South titles in each of his first two seasons.

After overhauling the front office, Irsay last week hired Ryan Grigson as his new general manager, then wanted to wait until Grigson had time to evaluate Caldwell’s performance.

Since then, Irsay and Grigson have debated what direction the team needed to go, whether staff changes would fix the problems or whether the team needed to bring in a new coach and possibly a new staff.

Things were so clouded on Monday that Caldwell even met with former St. Louis Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo about possibly becoming the Colts’ new defensive coordinator, and as late as yesterday morning, the conventional wisdom was that Caldwell would stay.

Then things changed almost as suddenly as the Colts’ fortunes in 2011.

Irsay said he informed Caldwell of the decision about 2 p.m., shortly before the team confirmed the move.

“We just came to the conclusion that this is best moving forward for the franchise,” Grigson said.

Falcons hire Nolan to lead defense

The Atlanta Falcons hired former San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Nolan as their defensive coordinator.

Nolan spent the past two seasons as the Miami Dolphins’ defensive coordinator. Prior to that, he served four years as 49ers coach.

Nolan takes over in Atlanta for Brian VanGorder, who returned to the college ranks to take the same position at Auburn.